


The Witch in the Tower

by trajektoria



Category: GreedFall (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Children, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Pre-Canon, and later adults, the kids uncover a secret they shouldn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:33:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23378422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trajektoria/pseuds/trajektoria
Summary: Young Constantin and Armand hear a rumor about a witch living in a dilapidated tower. Curiosity prompts them to investigate. Only years later will they understand what they truly saw.
Relationships: Constantin d'Orsay & De Sardet, Constantin d'Orsay/De Sardet
Comments: 6
Kudos: 43





	The Witch in the Tower

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks to [captainjennhart](http://captainjennhart.tumblr.com/) who is the best beta ever and a treasured friend. You rock! <3

“Hey, Armand. Have you heard what the servants are saying?” Constantin leaned towards him, whispering conspiratorially, even though nobody was around.

They were in the ruins of a watchtower that had crumbled almost beyond recognition, the surface level nothing but debris and rotting wood. It was situated at the far end of the royal estate. There were no guards nearby because there was nothing left to guard.

Once again, the boys had managed to sneak out of the palace to go on an adventure. Maybe they were only five and six years of age, Constantin the older and supposedly wiser one, but they had mastered the art of ditching their governess to perfection. She probably still thought they were in the kitchen, getting lunch.

Armand looked at his cousin, intrigued. So far Constantin hadn’t disclosed anything about the goal of their field trip and he was hungry for information. There was only so long one could wait patiently.

“No, Connie. What are they saying?”

“That this watchtower is… haunted!” Constantin boomed and laughed when Armand recoiled.

“H-haunted?”

“Yes! You can hear creepy voices at night, chanting unholy verses,” Constantin recited as if quoting the exact words of the staff, his eyes flashing with excitement. The rumor had captivated him and fueled his imagination. Like a practiced storyteller, he modulated his voice for maximum effect as he went on. “There’s even a legend connected to this place! One stormy night, an evil witch was brought here to wait for a trial for her crimes. But she didn’t want to be burned at the stake in front of everyone so she summoned a lightning bolt that destroyed the entire building. Some say that she escaped, but most think that she died in a fire or under the rocks. Now her ghost is tied to this place as she looks for revenge, kidnapping people and drinking their blood!”

“Gah! That’s a scary story!” Armand curled up on himself. “Let’s get back home…”

“Are you kidding? No! Let’s explore the tower!”

“Why? There’s nothing here.”

“Well, the tower is destroyed, yes,” Constantin nodded, “but I heard that there’s a dungeon below. And you can reach the Coin Guard barracks from there!”

“I don’t know, Connie… It sounds dangerous…”

“Yes! And fun!” Constantin was too enthusiastic to heed any warning. Nothing and no one could change his mind when he was in one of his hyper moods. “Come on. Let’s find the entrance!”

Resistance was futile. Obediently, even if with reserve, Armand followed Constantin who took the lead, as always. Armand kept close to his cousin, not wanting to lag behind. The ruins of the tower looked ominous despite the rays of sunshine cast on it from above.

Armand took part in the excavations half-heartedly, maybe picking up one tiny stone every couple of minutes, but Constantin was digging through the ruins like a bloodhound on the trail. A layer of dust coated his clothes and his hair, and he tore his pants on a sharp splinter. The princess would be very upset. Again. 

An hour later, when Constantin’s fires of motivation had been mostly extinguished by the dull reality and pitiful progress, they finally got a breakthrough. 

“Armand! Armand, look!”

Constantin tugged at an overgrown bush growing against the western side of the crumbled wall, twigs snapping in his hands. He uncovered a small opening, a window of sorts barely above the ground. An adult could never fit inside, but a child…

Armand recognized that unmistakable glint in his cousin’s eye. “No, Constantin! It’s dangerous!” He gazed into the darkness, a shiver running down his spine. “We can’t go there!”

Constantin didn’t listen, of course. He’d already crawled halfway into the hole, squinting to see better.

“I think there’s a table here. We should be able to land on it safely. Oh! And I think I see a lantern in there too.”

“But how are we going to get out of there? Connie, we should go back! Nobody even knows that we’re here! What if something happens to us? What if the witch gets us?”

His warning fell on deaf ears. Constantin slipped inside, the dark pit swallowing him whole.

“Connie! Connie, are you okay?” Armand held his breath.

“Yes! It’s fine! Come here, I found the lantern. And the matches!”

Armand pursed his lips, looking left and right anxiously. He didn’t want to do it. The hole looked scary and something horrible might befall them there–even if the stories about the witch were just stories, the danger of the walls collapsing was very real. But he couldn’t leave Constantin alone in the dark either, could he?

Grudgingly, Armand shuffled forward and lowered himself into the unknown. The fall was way shorter than he expected. Almost immediately his feet stomped onto a wooden surface.

“Good, you’re here.” Constantin, crouching right next to him, gave him a smile before turning his attention back to the lantern in his hand.

In the semi-darkness, Armand watched his cousin fiddle with the contraption, grunting in frustration as the sparks he produced with the tinderbox had little to no effect. But eventually the flame erupted, accompanied by Constantin’s joyful whoop.

“Antoine showed me how it’s done!” Constantin lifted their source of light, eager to see more.

Armand noted that they found themselves in a corridor of an old, abandoned prison. The air felt moldy and damp, contributing to the growth of rust on the metal bars of the small cells on both sides of the pathway. The silence was deafening. No one had been here for a very long time. Goosebumps erupted all over Armand’s skin.

“Connie, please, I don’t like this. Let’s go home…”

“No! We’ve come this far! We can’t just leave without at least checking what’s inside.”

“I’m scared…”

“Oww, don’t be. I’ll never let anything bad happen to you.” Constantin wrapped his arm around him, giving him a brief hug. “We’ll just go down that corridor and then we’ll be heading back. Okay?”

Armand gave him an uncertain look but then nodded. He could never refuse his cousin, not really.

“Okay then! Let’s go!” Constantin jumped from the dusty table down to the ground but didn’t move forward, waiting for Armand to join him. He could pretend to be fearless all he wanted, but anyone would be at least a bit scared to venture forth into the darkness alone. Armand carefully slid to the ground as well and held his cousin’s elbow as they marched on.

Step after step, they went deeper down the corridor. Constantin still tried to appear carelessly excited to pursue a new adventure, but the oppressive atmosphere was taking its toll on him as well. He moved slower, becoming more hesitant. Armand noticed his chance.

“We can turn back, Connie…”

“No! We’ll go to the end of the corridor,” he repeated with a decisive nod. It was a matter of pride now, Arman realized. Constantin couldn’t just give up like that.

Swallowing hard, Armand remained hard on his cousin’s heels, while quaking in his boots.

The lantern gave just enough light to illuminate the path and very little else. In the dubious times of the prison’s glory, the torches attached firmly to the walls must have shone brightly. But now they were dark, out of their reach high above, so even if they wanted they couldn’t revive them.

The cells were deathly quiet as they passed them by, drowned in darkness only slightly dispersed by the dimmed light from outside that squeezed through tiny, barred, half-collapsed windows. It was an awful place and Armand felt sad for anyone who was kept here at some point. They must have been so hopeless…

Instinctively, Armand shifted even closer to Constantin, nearly hugging him from behind at that point. Constantin didn’t seem to mind. Armand could feel him trembling slightly. But regardless he walked on, prompted by his stubbornness. 

Armand tried not to look too closely into the cells, empty and abandoned a long time ago. But if there was something inside… he didn’t want to even think about that. Skeletons terrified him. He was pretty sure that he’d have nightmares after this little excursion and he didn’t want them to be even worse.

“Connie…” he whispered, not daring to make any louder noise. “Let’s go… I’m scared…”

Armand heard his cousin swallow hard. Constantin was scared too, of that he was certain, even if he didn’t want to admit it.

“It’s boring here. I’m disappointed,” he replied, just as quietly. He was aiming for a flippant tone, but he didn’t quite manage, not with his teeth chattering. “Yes, we can go back.”

Someone coughed.

The boys froze, instantly paralyzed. They traded panicked glances.

“Armand…?”

“No, it wasn’t me!”

“Maybe it was just… the wind?”

The cough repeated. A wet, ugly hackle of someone seriously ill and beyond recovery.

Huddled together, Constantin and Armand stared into the darkness of the corridor. The sound came from somewhere in front of them, from one of the cells.

“Someone is there, Connie!”

“How is that possible? Everything is so abandoned here!”

“Maybe it’s a ghost?”

“There is no such thing as ghosts, Armand.” Despite the words of assurance, he didn’t sound too confident. “It must be a human!”

Armand gasped, his hand flying to his mouth. “It’s the witch!”

“It was just a story! It can’t be the witch!”

“But there’s someone there!”

“Maybe someone is still being held prisoner here after all?”

“Connie…”

“Let’s just go and take a peek.”

“Connie!”

“They’re surely locked up! They can’t hurt us through the bars!”

That was a solid argument and Armand couldn’t argue with it. He hesitated and Constantin used that moment of uncertainty to move forward. Armand had no choice but to follow lest he was left alone in the dark, which would have been worse than whatever awaited them there.

The boys walked side by side, Constantin lifting the lantern high into the air. The long shadows seemed to be sneaking towards them like predators on the prowl. Armand trembled and instinctively caught Constantin’s hand. Constantin squeezed it back, his skin just as sweaty.

They moved to another part of the corridor. The noise had come from somewhere here.

Out of the corner of his eye, Armand noticed something. Something stirred inside the cell.

“Connie!” he hissed, stopping dead in his tracks. Constantin halted as well and looked at him with fear glistening in his eyes. Armand pointed a finger and Constantin’s gaze followed it. They were standing in the middle of the corridor, so Constantin extended his hand with the lantern, letting the light reach out further inside the cell.

The movement repeated. A darker shape among the semi-darkness of the musty confinement. The ragged silhouette pounced to the bars, snarling.

The boys screamed, flinching back. A dirty face pressed against the metal, blinking owlishly at the source of light. It was hard to tell who hid under the grime and rags reeking of dirt and decay. Only the eyes, blue like the summer’s sky, retained their color and sharpness.

The prisoner croaked something to them, the voice grating after becoming unaccustomed to speech.

“Do… Do you understand what they’re saying, Connie?”

“No. But I think that’s a woman.”

“Could this be the witch?”

“I don’t know. I thought it was just a story.”

The boys stared at the pitiful creature, concealed and forgotten, trying to communicate with them. The woman spoke a language that they weren’t familiar with. It sounded like nothing they had ever heard before, nothing like other languages of the continent.

“Do you think she’s casting a spell on us?” asked Constantin, concerned.

“No, I don’t think so,” Armand replied, more versed in the topic of magic. “Why do you think she’s here?”

“I don’t know. But it must have been something really bad.”

Armand nodded in agreement. He couldn’t imagine what kind of crime a person had to commit to be thrown into a terrible place like this. He felt sorry for her regardless. Nobody deserved this.

The woman’s eyes rested on him. Her gaze was searching, frantic as it swept across his face, zooming in on the mark on his cheek. Something changed within her. She gasped, her fingers touching her chapped lips. Tears streamed down her hollowed cheeks as a choked sob left her throat. Armand watched in confusion as the woman reached out to him through the bars, repeating one word over and over again. Armand couldn’t even identify what it was but the intensity of her chanting scared him.

“Connie, let’s go. Please.”

This time Constantin obliged. “Yes, let’s go. We need to tell everyone about her!”

The boys, unsettled beyond belief, left the dungeon swiftly, chased by the undecipherable cries of a mad woman. In a panic, they dashed to the palace, seeking out the adult they trusted most. Armand’s mother listened to their disjointed story, promising to breach the subject with her brother, the prince, although she didn’t seem to believe them. She told them that it must have been all in their heads, that the tower had been abandoned for years.

Never again did the princess mention the mysterious woman. When, after a few weeks, the boys sneaked out into the dungeon again, the prisoner was gone without a trace. After a while they started to doubt themselves if it had really happened or if they just fell victim to a hallucination and fear-induced suggestion. The incident had been forgotten. For now.

* * *

Years later on the faraway island of Teer Fradee, Armand sat in the governor’s room in the palace in New Serene, waiting for his cousin. His thoughts were dark as he stared out the window with unseeing eyes. Everything he had learned about his heritage weighed heavily on his heart. All the lies he had been fed, all the things that had been taken from him. It hurt. It hurt so much he had trouble breathing.

“Armand…?” He heard Constantin’s gentle voice and felt his warm hand resting on his shoulder. He didn’t even know when his cousin had sneaked in, so lost in his own thoughts he was. But he was grateful for the company. “Are you all right, my love?”

“No,” he admitted, putting his hand over Constantin’s. He looked up at his cousin’s face, noting how pale and sallow his skin seemed. It was breaking his heart to know that his dearest was unwell. One more impossible burden to carry.

For a long while they were silent. Armand suspected that Constantin could tell what he was thinking about. But regardless, he said it out loud. “Do you remember that woman locked up in a dungeon that we found when we were children?”

“Yes, I remember. Armand…”

“I think… I think she was my mother… My real mother…”

His voice broke. He didn’t know when, but he’d started to cry, tears of sadness and anger spilling from his eyes.

Constantin said nothing, as no words could convey his grief. He took Armand’s hand in his, made him stand up and locked him in a warm embrace, just holding him, holding him for as long as Armand needed.

“The world has been cruel to us, Armand. But we won’t let it win. We’ll always have each other. Always.”

Of that one thing Armand was certain. He pressed his face into the crook of Constantin’s neck, letting his cousin kiss his temple with the fondness of a lover. There was a bond between them that the world couldn’t break.


End file.
